In Return
by Little Lady Mab
Summary: When you do something for someone, you must always give something in return. Watanuki knows that one, especially when it comes to Doumeki. Oneshot, hinted boylove. Spoilers for after ch 117119. Critique and comments appreciated!


And here he was once again: dangling _upside-down_ (of all angles) from a tree, Unlucky Watanuki Kimihiro. How did he even wind up in a tree in the first place?! And why, of _all people_, was stupid Doumeki holding onto his leg?! (Just one! The idiot—couldn't even grab two legs.)

A dark shadow shifted in the branches of the tree next to the one he was dangling from, moving quickly to lurk admits the cherry blossoms of his tree.

"Behind you!" Watanuki shouted, his voice choked as he tried to get a better look.

Doumeki's right eye flickered slightly. "I know, stupid. I can see it." Slowly, he began to free his left hand from the branch it was wrapped around. "Are there any others?"

There should have been. The ugly bird one that had picked him up when they were walking home together after school and deposited him in the tree twenty, thirty, god-knows how many feet above the ground was missing. The second was the one looming behind his classmate.

"Do something about the one behind you! And I'm not an idiot!! Why must you insist upon calling me such stupid names, stupid?" The bespectacled boy started waving his arms about in an angry matter.

"It's not going to attack me just yet," Doumeki replied evenly, his left arm tightening back around the branch.

Despite after the few months, Watanuki decided that he still wasn't used to his rival being able to see things normally only _he_ could see. He flailed again out of frustration.

"Do you want me to drop you, dumb ass?" the male in the tree growled, his voice tinged with an uncharacteristic annoyance.

With a wail of irritation, Watanuki craned his neck up so he could glare at the idiot holding his leg (his was half hoping that the idiot would see how stupid he looked when he talked through their shared vision). "Why would I want to be dropped?! You think I have a death wish or something, stupid?" He shook both fists threateningly.

Doumeki's grip slipped—the normally cool face flickering as he scrambled to catch a hold of the flailing boy's leg once again. "Stop wriggling, then!" he called back.

The dangling Watanuki froze immediately as he felt the momentary rush of inertia.

Below them, Himawari stood with her slender little fingers pressed over her lips. "It's my fault… isn't it? Because I'm so unlucky…" Turning her violet eyes away, the girl reached onto another's arm. "Yuuko-san, please! Can't you help them?"

The witches' upside-down gaze was trained on Watanuki—her part-time employee understanding what her response was before it was even uttered. "No. This is something they must get through together." Her face was grim, yet something in her hard eyes was apologetic.

The black creature in her purse moaned in concern. "Watanuki…"

Himawari's hands slacked, then fell altogether from Yuuko's arm. "I see…" she muttered, turning back as she tried to stay calm.

Watanuki attempted a frown, gravity pulling his face in the opposite direction. Nothing in the world was as tragic as his sweet little Himwari-chan looking disappointed. Fully determined to get out of this situation, just to see her relieved expression, he began to crane his neck back up to shout at Doumeki.

But at that moment, the monster that had been lurking in the cherry blossoms behind the archer decided that it was time to pounce.

With a startled shout—a sound that was mixed with Himawari and Mokona's cries—the dangling boy saw the ground jerk a few inches closer. His glasses slipped and fell from his nose, landing in Yuuko's up-turned hand. Her look of grim concern darkened with a grown.

"I thought I told you to look out behind you!" he shouted angrily up at Doumeki.

He gave a grunt of pain, his grip tightening on Watanuki's ankle. (He started at the knee, and now he was at the ankle. That's _not_ what a rescue mission was supposed to be about! You don't _loose your grip_ on your client's leg!!)

The demon now had a firm grasp on the male in the tree—its spindly limbs wrapped around his chest and waist. White teeth flashed in the dappled light before sinking themselves into the boy's shoulder.

There was another mixture of cries from the three students and the black Mokona as his grip slipped once again.

"Don't you dare drop me!" Watanuki shouted, his voice tight with panic. Certainly, there were plenty of better things that he could have said, but the first thing from his mouth was the frantic shout. Falling out of the window of their school was bad enough. It took him awhile to recover from that, and the price from everyone was heavy.

There was no need to repeat that. Especially if it would involve seeing Himawari-chan looking so sad. Doumeki he could care less about.

"Wouldn't… think of it," came the stoic reply, the mask of concentration on his face now dotted with beads of sweat.

A faint smile pulled at the other boy's mouth. "You can see the other one, can't you?"

"That bird one? It's not the same one that I hit earlier—the third eye is still there."

"How close is it?"

"Right beneath you."

Sealing his eyes, one a golden brown and the other a clear blue, Watanuki sighed. "There is probably more lurking around in the trees."

Nodding, Doumeki grabbed tighter onto the branch he was sitting on with his legs. "Don't squirm. I'm going to try and pull you up with both hands."

"Doumeki-kun!" Himawari called from her position on the ground. "Please, don't do anything reckless!"

At a moment like this, and she's worried about Doumeki?! Well, then again he did have a demon currently trying to eat his shoulder… But WHO was the one hanging upside down with a demon waiting to swallow him up?!

"You too, Watanuki-kun! Stay safe!"

"Anything you ask, Himawari-chan!" the dangling boy cooed, clasping his hands in front of his chest, eyes tearing up at the sparkling mental-image of the girl on the ground.

Something nudged the back of his head, pulling at the high collar of his school uniform. A hot, foul breath snuffled in his ear. "I bet you're really tasty. We'll eat your friend first as payment for hurting my brother."

His eyes snapped open—staring right into Doumeki's dead-pan gaze. Could they always talk before? He didn't remember, it had been so long since he had been cornered by one this powerful. Much less alone _three_.

"We don't have any more time to be cautious," the archer said simply. Despite his best efforts, there was a twinge of pain pulling at the corners of his eyes.

Watanuki nodded, his face serious. His rival didn't have to say anything else, but at this point in time they understood each other well enough that nothing _had_ to be said.

Doumeki let go of the branch his left arm was grasping. It dropped down, as if reaching for the dangling boy, but didn't make an attempt to grab the other leg.

"I suppose this is a little late to be asking," he began hesitantly, eyeing the soft white-blue particles begin to form in the other's palm, "but can I trust you?"

Turning the golden-brown gaze down for a moment, the stoic expression cracked to allow a pained smirk. "You don't have a choice."

Watanuki closed his eyes and hoped—prayed to anything that would listen—that at least one of them would make it out of this safely.

The next thing the unlucky boy felt was that strange rush: the ground rising to meet you, or you falling to greet the ground. For a brief instant, he panicked. The stupid idiot just didn't drop him, right? Though nothing had been said, he figured that _at least_ he understood Doumeki well enough to know that he wouldn't just be _dropped_.

And then the panic stopped. A strong arm wrapped around his shoulders and they fell together.

----

'Did… I die?'

A man gave a hearty laugh. 'Nowhere near it, Watanuki-kun.'

'Ah… Haruka-san.' The young man scratched his forehead. 'This this is a dream?'

The figure smiled—something that always seemed out of place on the face that looked so much like Doumeki's. 'Something like that. It's simply another reality.' He regarded Watanuki carefully. 'Shizuka has been saving you a lot, hasn't he?'

Embarrassed by this question, the boy unconsciously lifted a hand to cover his right eye. 'Something like that.'

Haruka laughed again. 'You should just loosen up around him. Despite his looks, Shizuka is a good boy.'

'You're just saying that because he is your grandson, Haruka-san.' Watanuki couldn't help but giving a small smile, letting his hand slip back down. 'Do you know if he'll be alright? The demon got his shoulder pretty bad.'

'You're doubting him, Watanuki-kun?' the man replied, a small twist of his lips giving him a _very_ Doumeki type of look.

He tilted his head back. 'No, I suppose not.'

There wasn't a reply. When the boy looked, Haruka was nowhere to be found.

'How typical of him,' Watanuki thought as the dream went black.

----

Because it was so dark, and because he didn't know if he was awake or not, the boy was having a hard time figuring out how much time was passing. At one point, he felt something soft touch against his mouth (or what he guessed was his mouth since he really didn't have a sense of body either) and a cool _something _run down his throat.

This happened two more times; the third and final time, there was the faint trace of something salty left on his lips.

A while later, Watanuki's eyes flickered open and he slowly sat up. His uniform jacket had been removed and his glasses were nowhere to be found.

"You're vision is really bad."

"Well ex-_cuse­ _me, Mr. Perfect Vision," he reeled, hands flailing around frantically in the air. "Maybe that's why I wear glasses!"  
Doumeki was sitting with his typical perfect posture at his feet. His left hand was planted on his knee, a bowl of cheap drinking snacks (must have been from Yuuko-san) and a bottle of water next to it. His right hand was lifted to the side of his head—one finger blocking the sound from his ear. "You're so noisy."

"Where's Yuuko-san? And Himawari-chan?"

"She took Kunogi home," he answered dully. Then, in response to the other boy's questioning gaze, he said, "We're at my temple. You passed out after we hit the ground—Yuuko said it was because of the heavy evil aura and probably just shock."

Watanuki made a terrorized face. "Then…"

"I had to carry you here. Are you gaining weight?"

A nerve popped on the side of his head. "Of all the things for you to say! You stupid ingrate, there are just some things you shouldn't say to people!"

Doumeki's hand was back over his ear and his golden-brown eyes drifted to the side idly.

Watanuki calmed down a bit. "H—how's your shoulder?" he asked hesitantly, hands fiddling with the edge of the blanket. Even after the long months, the pinky finger on his right hand did not heel, just like Yuuko-san predicted.

He gave a one-armed shrug. "It will take some time, but it's nothing serious."

"Did Yuuko-san mend it?"

Doumeki nodded absently.

With a frown, he looked around for his glasses. "What did you have to pay?"

There was a pause.

"Well?"

"I'm not telling."

"Arg! I should have seen that coming from you! Not telling me something whenever you don't feel like talking." Watanuki pointed an angry finger at the young man, who was covering one ear, positioned at his feet. "You should stop paying her for such unnecessary wishes," he snapped. "You'll be paying her back for things that you could have done on your own and soon you will have nothing left to pay with when something happens…" The boy trailed off, looking down at his hands.

There was another pause.

"There's always something I will be able to give, especially if the situation is dire enough."

When Watanuki looked up, he was flustered to see the other's gaze staring right back at him—both hands planted on his knees in the rigid traditional position. "You know something that I don't…?"

He cocked his head ever-so-slightly to the side. "A bit."

With a heavy sigh—the breath lifting the uneven wisps of hair framing his face—the boy turned his head away. "In any case… thank you for saving me."

"I want octopus karaage and some tonkatsu. With some crab chanko Umai Bō."

"WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?! Establish the context before you start speaking, you stupid idiot!" Watanuki shouted in return.

Doumeki's dull gaze shifted to the side as his uninjured hand strayed to cover his ear. "You always make a bento. I want octopus karaage, tonkatsu, and crab chanko Umai Bō."

"You can't just expect me to make you some Umai Bō!!"

"Then buy me some."

"It's a discontinued flavor!!"

"Fine then. Natto."

"WHO THE HELL EATS NATTO FLAVORED UMAI BŌ?!"

Doumeki smirked. "I was only kidding, stupid," he said softly.

Watanuki's hands paused in mid-flail, hovering uncertainly in the air above his lap. "Don't say stupid things like that, idiot. I don't know how to react to them."

"The same way you react to everything else. Lots of yelling and flying limbs."

The archer turned his head away, covering one ear as the boy began to rant again—limbs flying this way and that.

"I'd really wish you would stop getting so worked up."

"What do you mean?" he snapped back.

Doumeki hesitated a moment, checking to make sure it was safe to lower his hand. "Your right eye. Originally we thought it was just after you encountered something with strong supernatural power and you got worked-up about it that I would be able to see things." The archer scratched the back of one hand before continuing. "Then after I gave you my blood, I began to see things on my own—a good example being the two bird demons today."

He sighed and closed his eyes, his rigid posture relaxing slightly. "But lately I think that whenever you get over excited that your sight comes to me as well. Then again, even though it's half of my eye's sight, your eyes must have completely messed up my vision because it's really blurry when you don't have your glasses."

Watanuki wanted to argue back, but he was too tired. "Where are they?"

"Yuuko took them. She came by for a moment and gave me this water and snacks for you then took Kunogi home."

He paused. "Did… you eat some of the snacks?"

"Yeah, so?"

The boy's face paled. Something… there was something that should have presented itself at that moment, but it didn't. Watanuki scratched his head in confusion, muttering softly to himself as he tried to think about what it was that he was missing.

Doumeki's dead-pan expression gave nothing away.

"Why must you always be like that!" he shouted, angrily mussing his hair with the palms of his two hands. "So smug and so know-it-all, ARG I hate it!!"

Watanuki stopped in the middle of his rant as Doumeki's good hand reached out and came to rest gently over his eyes—the golden-brown one proof of their shared vision, and the crystal blue one that gleamed with his familiar energy.

"I know this bothers you, too," the young man began. "I see what you see whenever your eyes are open, regardless of if I have mine closed or not." He let his hand linger there, not bothering to shift in anyway as the smaller figure slumped forward in defeat. "But now that I can see what you see if you're not looking, I'll always be there to rescue you, Unlucky Watanuki."

"Shut up. Thank you. Damn it, I hate you, you stupid monkey." All of this was muttered into his own lap as the boy leaned against Doumeki's hand.

"Some eggplant salad with lemon-flavored plum dressing would suffice."

"Where the hell do you come up with all this crap?"

"That doesn't matter. Will you make it for lunch tomorrow?"

Watanuki laughed weakly. "You're not getting any."

His hand shifted slightly on the boy's forehead. "What about my octopus karaage?"

"Himawari…chan… Wouldn't like it…" the other replied sleepily. "Isn't there any—anything else I could do?"

Doumeki resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Without saying anything, he laid Watanuki back on the blankets before resuming his station at the foot of the make-shift bed. "You'd be better off making bentos than what I could ask of you."

"Hnn…" he muttered before drifting off once again into sleep.


End file.
